The Unseen
by Writing.is.painting.with.words
Summary: Arryn is the daughter of a lesser-known merchant, forced to live her life by the same dull routine. She craves excitement and change- and where better to find them than the dark streets of the Barrel? However, as Arryn finds herself growing more and more entangled in the dealings of the gangs, not everything is as it seems... (Sorry, I suck at summaries)


**Six of Crows**

 **The Unseen**

 _Arryn_

The shadows surrounded her, as they always had, dark and silent and comforting. It was thanks to them that her target had no idea of her existence.

This will be easy, she told herself. I can get him, and then I can take however long I want to shred him into pieces. And then I can get the hell away from here.

She shifted her position on the clock tower, high up and balanced on some of the intricate designs in the brickwork. There was a series of ledges around its top, upon one of which she was perched. A few crows were up here with her, their dark feathers glistening in the sun and beady eyes twinkling. She would fly like one of them in a moment.

Her own black clothing hung around her comfortably; soft pieces of fabric that clung to her body yet were loose enough to allow free movement. This too would aid her.

The man she envisioned with a target on his back was below her, crawling forwards along one of the roofs towards his own quarry at the end of it. Little did he know his 'target' was well aware of his position, sitting vulnerably in the open with their feet dangling over the tiles into open air.

As the man neared the figure, also cloaked in darkness just as per custom, she readied herself. She shifted her position again, checked the blades slid into the gauntlets at her forearms, and judged the distance between herself and her prey.

And then she leapt, nothing but a whisper as she flew through the air, arms outstretched as she soared straight for the man below.

She didn't see his knife until it was too late.

It all started with a fistful of coins.

Her father had given them to her before she left for the university that morning, dressed in her finest with a bag full of books. The dark silk of her hair was pinned up and braided back, so that it didn't fall into her face or into the ink that she would write with. Not that it would show up; her hair was the exact shade of it.

"Father," she'd asked him, "I need some money for lunch today, please."

"What?" he'd snapped from his desk as he always did when she spoke. He'd sat up a little straighter when he'd seen her, leaving the ledgers and money he'd been hunched over for a moment. "Oh, just take these, here," he'd answered irritably, sliding a small pile of coins along the desk to her roughly enough that a few fell off, clinking on the floor.

Arryn had crouched to gather them up, picking at them like a starved crow picks at flesh. She supposed that she was starved- starved of joy and love. She had enough food, a comfortable home, but she was a shadow. She might as well not even exist.

Her father had never really wanted her, though. A merchant wanted a son to hand down his legacy, an exact copy of what he was. He didn't want a girl, especially when he believed they lived to serve the needs of men. In whatever way the men deemed fit.

Eventually she'd had a palm full of silver coins, plenty for lunch, and had just started to stand and leave for the university when her head bumped the corner of the desk. Her empty hand flew to the point of pain and she winced- before a blow came for the base of her neck.

The air was knocked from her and she'd coughed, her shoulders caving in and her breath wheezing as she'd tried to regain it. Through the pain in her head and throat she had heard her father shouting:

"You worthless whore! You've gone and knocked all my money over, you stupid brat! I only keep you alive for the payment you'll get me once I've married you off, but I can always find other means to…"

And on he'd raged, his voice tearing through the room and vibrating in her ears. Arryn had wondered how she wasn't used to it by now. He shouted at her often enough for her to think she would've been.

After enduring another lecture and a whack on the back Arryn had headed off to the university, where she'd spent the morning making sure her collar was pulled up high enough to hide the bruise blossoming at the base of her throat. Eventually break had arrived, where the students were allowed to leave the premises for a while to buy food. The entrance doors had opened to a flood of people, all in their late teens, chatting and laughing with each other as they swapped stories.

"Did you hear what Kerrick did with Ayden the other night?"

"Yeah. I can't believe they actually went there, the prostitutes have all kinds of diseases."

"Every woman probably has diseases in Ketterdam. They're all filthy."

"That's true. Maybe we should give it a try then."

"What, you haven't been yet?"

"You _have_?!"

The cackling of boys and girls had followed her into town, until all she'd wanted was just to be away from it all. She passed bakery after bakery, food stall after food stall, and yet the money in her pocket had remained there for the entirety of her break.

Giving up and growing tired, she'd perched herself on the edge of a grubby fountain to watch and wait for a while, glancing around the street. Shops lined the sides of the pavements, garish signs out front proclaiming the best deals in town and a free item or two if you spent more than a certain price. People bustled about, most in the strange costumes seen all around Ketterdam: the blue silk of the Lost Bride, the big orange cape and mask of the Madman. All characters from a stupid play, the Komedie Brute. Arryn had never seen it.

Abruptly, echoing across the town, the towering clock had chimed midday. The streets filled with renewed noise as the students streamed out of cafes and shops, all heading up the winding paths to the university once more. Arryn had forced herself to stand and head back, too.

But as she'd forced one foot in front of the other, she'd decided that there was no point; she wasn't going to be able to concentrate much today, anyway, and she couldn't go through the rest of the day without eating. So she'd turned and headed away, winding through a maze of buildings and along canals towards East Stave.

She'd been aware of the exact moment she entered the Barrel; the very air seemed harsher, the shadows of buildings darker, the people strolling along and going about their business a different sort to the ones she'd left behind.

Yet she hadn't been scared. Not at all. Perhaps it was the upbringing she'd had with her father, or perhaps she was just stupid. Or maybe she was ready for something exciting to happen, rather than just spending her days getting screamed at and beaten and then trying to sit with her head high at the desks in the university.

Arryn's eyes had darted from person to person, wondering what reasons these people had to be out of their homes today. Eventually, inevitably, something other than people had caught her eye.

There was a building, bedecked in green, shrouded in shrubbery loaded with gold and silver coins. A gambling den. Her eyes found the bright sign over the doorway, near-glowing next to the run down state of the other buildings. It read: The Emerald Palace.

Alarm bells had sounded in her ears as everything she'd ever heard about this particular den- and its owner- resurfaced in her brain: this place was dangerous. It could rob you of your coins, your sense of self if you so much as went in once, because the addiction would sink its claws into you and never let go. Men lost everything to greed, and many women lost more than coins. It was a dark place, filled with lies and deceit and pain.

Then why had it looked so welcoming?

A man had stood on the front steps, calling out to potential customers. Cheap drinks, fair odds, the beautiful Kaelish women that were their servers. He'd caught sight of Arryn, still in her black and white uniform, her pencil skirt clinging to her thighs and her glossy hair hanging down to her waist. He'd taken in her features: her small nose, round eyes, high cheeks and heart-shaped face.

"You alright there, darling?" he'd called, eyes roving over her. "Fancy a drink?"

Warmth had crept up to Arryn's cheeks. She was barely ever spoken to. At the university she was ignored, at home she was shouted at and beaten. She hadn't realised just how much she'd craved some attention until some was given to her.

She remembered feeling the man's attention on her body, her face, and… she remembered feeling herself enjoying it. The rush it'd given her.

He'd continued watching her, waiting for an answer. She'd known that she would have to give him one quickly, or he'd start pushing. She'd already spent too much time in silence.

He'd stepped a single stair down from his position, eyes focused on her- but she'd moved. She'd gone up the stairs.

"I'd be happy to," she'd said, completely unaware of the obvious difference in speech between them: the man's rugged and rasping tones, her cool and crisp pronunciations that marked her for what she was. A merchant's daughter, looking for a bit of excitement in the Barrel, perhaps. Fresh and ripe for the taking.

But as she'd been led through into the Emerald Palace, Arryn had never felt more alive.

She remembered all of this and more as she walked through the Palace's doors once again, for the third time since she'd first discovered it. It had been less than a week ago, but just like the rumours had said she simply couldn't stay away.

Arryn had spent that first time seated beside the man who'd welcomed her inside, his hands occasionally finding their way to her shoulder or her back. But he hadn't pushed it, and he hadn't the last two times she'd found her way into the gambling hall.

No. She'd been the one to take it up a notch.

"How're you for drinks, darling?" he asked her now, glancing up at her from her position on his lap. His gaze slid down her body, to her breasts, clearly visible due to the low-cut blue dress she wore, and to her legs, clean shaven and also visible because of the split in the dress' side. His hand slipped around her waist, his rough fingers grazing the bare skin at the top of her thigh. Almost imperceptibly, Arryn inched closer so that her chest was right beneath his chin, causing a smug smirk to pull at his lips.

"I'm great," she said huskily, her lips scraping against the shell of his ear as she leaned down, arching her head so that her dark hair fell and the smooth column of her neck was exposed. The hand at her waist slithered lower and squeezed, his fingers digging in, and she tugged at his ear with her teeth in reply.

"Why don't we go somewhere else?" he asked her. "Get to know each other better?"

"I'm too tired," she answered. An easy excuse. No matter what she did here with this man whose name she still didn't know, she wasn't going anywhere private with him. She knew what he wanted, and she also knew he wouldn't be kind as he took it. She had enough bruises from her father.

"Soon?" he asked, nearly a whine. Arryn smiled before leaning to give him a peck on the cheek. He turned his head as he felt her, his lips searching for hers and claiming them when they met. After a moment she felt the push of his tongue, and she opened her lips just enough to let him in.

A familiar rush entered her body along with it, and her hand reached up to grasp the side of his face. One of his hands squeezed her rear again, while the other reached up to her jaw. His finger arced along the curve of it, then straight down her throat and lower, grazing directly over a nipple through the material of her dress. Her breath hitched as his finger slid still lower, down her abdomen until it reached her thigh. His palm flattened against her skin, tracing slow circles.

"One day," he murmured, biting her lip hard enough to bleed. It wasn't a question.

Arryn opened her mouth to whisper something- she didn't know what- before he pulled away abruptly, his hands leaving her and returning to his coins. Her flesh felt colder at the lack of touch, and the heat that had been burning inside her seemed to evaporate into smoke.

Arryn said nothing, understanding the concentration needed to play such a game. She sat quietly for a while longer, loosing track of time due to the lack of windows in the den. Kaelish servers darted about, fetching more drinks and foods for the customers. Anything to keep them in their seats, to keep the coins flowing. Arryn wondered how they managed it so well.

The inside of the Emerald Palace lived up to its name, with green of nearly every shade on almost every surface. Gold and silver decorations hung or rested throughout the room, flashing in the light from the large chandelier in the centre of the gambling floor. In the section of the room Arryn was seated at was the Makker's Wheels, and men and women alike shouted with joy and anger as they won and lost.

The first time Arryn had come here, she'd still had her handful of coins that would've gotten her lunch. The man who'd welcomed her had led her straight to the wheels and immediately started placing bets and laying down coins. Arryn had fished out the money in her pocket, and he'd chuckled.

"That all you got?" he'd asked.

"All I'm willing to give," she'd answered.

"You've gotta give more than that, or you'll get nothing in the end."

"Everything is made from something," she had said, watching the colourful wheels spin. "You have to start small."

"Whatever you want," he'd said condescendingly. A few seconds later and some more coins had come her way, and then a few more and a few more. It hadn't been much, but Arryn had made thrice what she'd walked in with that day. Meanwhile, the man had halved his total- and hadn't noticed what small feat she'd accomplished.

Afterwards she'd gone back home to her father, who once again ignored her and shut himself away in his office. Arryn had gone upstairs through their large house- which had seemed especially empty after the ruckus in the gambling den- and counted the coins she'd won just as she knew her father was doing in another room below. As she'd done so, she'd understood why people enjoyed the casinos and gambling halls so much; there was fun to be had in winning, and winning some more all in a row. A winning streak, she thought she'd heard. Of course, people eventually lost some, but they still kept at it for whenever the next streak would come.

Arryn hadn't been stupid, however. She knew she would continue to go to the Emerald Palace, possibly some other places too she'd heard of. The Crow Club was once she'd heard mentioned several times within the halls of the Palace itself. Perhaps she'd head there tomorrow, she'd thought. But even if she did, she knew that sensibility was the key: only bring a small total of coins to the den, so that if you did lose the loss wouldn't be too great. This way she could make lots of small gains, doubling or tripling each small sum she brought until in the end she had a much larger total altogether. She would have to be strict with herself, she'd known, and so she would be.

Now, watching as the man she was sitting on placed his own bets, Arryn fished the few coins she'd brought today out of the small pouch she had tied around her wrist. The little silver coins clinked musically against each other, joining in with the cacophony of paper notes and _kruge_ as it changed hands and moved around tables. Arryn smiled slightly to herself as she glanced about the hall, reading the euphoria in people's expressions. She raised her gaze skywards, towards the window of the boss' office. Pekka Rollins. Boss of the Barrel, apparently. She wondered how bad he could really be.

He approached the window as if her eyes had summoned him, his hands clasped behind his back and red hair shining. His eyes swept the gambling floor, looking over everything Arryn herself could see with a calculation few possessed. Then his eyes met Arryn's.

He looked at her dark hair, the low cut dress, the possessive way the man she was sat on grasped her hips. She knew how it seemed: that she had this man wrapped around her finger, that she knew very well what she was doing, and that he would be sharing whatever money he won tonight with her later. At that moment the man collected a slightly larger sum of _kruge_ than he had so far tonight, and chose that moment to give her a strong kiss on her mouth. After he pulled away Arryn turned to Rollins in his window again, and realised that his eyes were still on her. He was far away, but she thought she could see the barest smirk tugging at his lips. He said something to one of the men beside him- a hulking bruiser in uniform- before turning away from the window and striding back to what she assumed was his desk.

A few minutes later, Arryn wasn't all too surprised when the same man she'd seen Rollins speaking to approached her. He leaned down, his gravelly voice murmuring in her ear.

"Rollins wants to see you. It's in your best interests to follow me."

"Of course," she'd replied politely, before giving the gaping man with her a kiss on the cheek and trailing after the guard.

As she ascended the steps up to Rollins' office, her slender hand resting on the gilded railing, Arryn allowed herself to feel the fear rushing beneath her skin.

But, unsurprisingly to her, she could also feel a strong surge of excitement pounding alongside it.


End file.
